


Avec mes souvenirs

by AirgiodSLV



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-12
Updated: 2010-12-12
Packaged: 2017-10-19 01:29:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/195378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AirgiodSLV/pseuds/AirgiodSLV
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Ariadne licks her lips. Her hands are trembling, and she feels euphoric, triumphant just standing in this place, in front of this woman who makes her feel like a girl, like a child.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Avec mes souvenirs

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [this prompt](http://inception-kink.livejournal.com/7695.html?thread=31416847#t31416847) on the kink meme.

Mal’s on the sofa. Ariadne takes slow steps toward her, one at a time. Glass breaks under her heel and Mal’s head whips around, the predator alerted to the presence of the prey.

“What are you doing here?” she asks.

Ariadne doesn’t answer, because she isn’t sure she knows.

That’s a lie. She knows.

Neither of them move. Finally Mal stands; rounds the arm of the sofa and waits. “What are you doing here?” she repeats.

Ariadne licks her lips. Her hands are trembling, and she feels euphoric, triumphant just standing in this place, in front of this woman who makes her feel like a girl, like a child.

“Ask me again,” she whispers.

Mal’s head tilts, bird-like, raptorial. “Ask you,” she echoes, and glides forward, until she’s close enough that Ariadne’s enveloped in the scent of her perfume. She circles Ariadne, intent, and when she returns to standing in front of her, she stops.

Because this is Dom’s house, made of memories, she asks.

“Do you know what it is to be a lover?”

Ariadne closes her eyes, trembling.

“No,” she says. “But I want to.”

* *

Dom doesn’t know she comes down here. She catches him alone, late at night in the warehouse, and now that she knows what he dreams, it’s easy to slip through the cracks his mind leaves open for her. She can manipulate whole worlds with the power of her mind, and his are no exception.

She goes wherever he isn’t. Mal on the beach with the sun on her skin; Mal in their house full of the ghost-echoes of laughter; Mal waking slowly from a dream with a tear on her cheek.

It’s the Mal in the basement of his psyche that she craves the most, though. That’s who she seeks out when she comes here, Mal in the room full of broken glass and spilled wine, looking beautiful and dangerous.

After two visits, Mal lets her touch. Ariadne runs her fingers along the sleeve of Mal’s dress, and her breath catches in her throat.

Mal circles her, stands behind her and whispers.

“I know you,” she says.

Ariadne shudders all over, and when she opens her eyes she’s woken herself up.

* *

“Where is Dom?” Mal asks her.

“He’s upstairs,” Ariadne answers, terrified and breathless. Her heart is pounding in her chest.

Mal walks toward her, and glass shatters beneath her feet. “Why are you here?” she asks, and Ariadne doesn’t know how to answer.

“I know you,” she says, and Ariadne’s cheeks heat, a thrill of shame pooling low in her belly.

“Do you know what it means to be a lover?” Mal asks, and Ariadne’s legs tremble so hard she nearly falls to her knees.

“Please,” she begs. “Please.”

Mal laughs and moves away, the whisper of her dress making her easy to track even though Ariadne has her eyes fixed on the floor. Fragments of glass glitter on the carpet.

When she can’t bear it anymore and has to look up, Mal is on the sofa. Waiting.

“Come here, then,” Mal says, and beckons.

* *

Ariadne’s hands shake the first time she unzips Mal’s dress. She’s almost unsure of what she’ll find, because surely no woman can be this beautiful, this poised, this deadly. Surely she can’t be real.

But this is Dom’s dream, and Dom knows what’s hidden beneath that dress, what is slowly revealed as Ariadne pushes the fabric down over Mal’s chest and hips.

She kneels in front of the sofa, an acolyte at a shrine, and Mal doesn’t move when Ariadne touches her thighs with trembling fingers, when she leans toward the black lace keeping the last of Mal’s secrets hidden and inhales, wanting desperately to catch the scent of her.

Mal allows the presumption. She lets Ariadne look, and touch, and rest her shaking, desperate fingers against the edge of the lace high on Mal’s hip.

Then Mal squeezes her throat until she chokes, smiling as she does, and when Ariadne blacks out she’s practically drowning in euphoria and the scent of Mal’s perfume.

* *

 

Ariadne has died by strangling, stabbing, shooting, and drowning. Yusuf gives her an odd look when she wakes up thrashing, half-wild and disoriented beside a peacefully sleeping Dom, but she already knows his silence can be bought, so she doesn’t worry too much about it.

She goes home to her apartment and burrows beneath the blankets, shivering. She presses a hand between her legs, and when she comes it’s with light bursting behind her tightly-shut eyes and a hot flood of shame in her cheeks.

She doesn’t know why she’s doing this.

No, that’s not true. But she doesn’t know why she can’t make herself stop.

“Do you know what it is to be a lover?” Mal asks, the next time, and Ariadne begs until her voice is raw, begs with her hands clasped over her own wrists behind her back, nails digging gouges into her flesh to keep herself from reaching out and touching without permission.

Dom could take the elevator down and the doors could open at any moment, but that’s not why Ariadne’s face is flushed red and her thighs are trembling.

She keeps her eyes fixed on the floor until Mal places a single, dark-painted fingernail beneath her chin. She tips Ariadne’s hot face up until their eyes meet, and she smiles, cruel and beautiful.

“Come here,” she says.

* *

Dom knows this, so now Ariadne knows it too; the taste of Mal and the hot rush of her over Ariadne’s open mouth, the way she swells against Ariadne’s tongue and the rough grind of her hips when she’s close and impatient.

Ariadne learns the sounds she makes, the hitches in her breath and the hisses of pleasure, the throaty moans when she’s on the brink of coming. She memorizes them all, greedy and desperate, lapping up all she can before Mal inevitably grows tired of her and pulls Ariadne’s head back by her hair to slit her throat.

She wakes up panting and flushed, her panties soaked and moisture seeping through the crotch of her jeans. She’s the only one here tonight besides Dom, so she shoves her hand inside her pants and rocks mindlessly against the heel of her hand three, four, five times until she comes.

The ride home is wet and uncomfortable, but she regrets nothing. _Non, rien de rien._ She’s been listening.

* *

She asks Arthur once, when Dom is too busy to dream and Ariadne is too distracted to work, sketching curves instead of strong lines. She tells him she wants to know more about Dom, and about the woman who meant so much to him. She asks Arthur to dream Mal for her.

Arthur is puzzled, she can tell, but he likes her, and she’s chosen not to disillusion him, so she asks and he agrees and they dream.

It’s not the same.

Mal in Arthur’s dreams is still beautiful, still poised, full of teasing laughter and smiling at every turn. Ariadne watches and listens and feels herself trembling with disappointment, aching for something that isn’t here.

Arthur leans back against a low brick wall, his eyes tracing Mal’s face with fondness and sorrow, but not the all-encompassing grief of loss. Ariadne wonders if he’ll ask her to dinner tonight when they wake up, but she already knows he won’t, not until the job is over. Eames had told her days ago that she’d have to be patient to hook that fish. He’d winked at her when he’d said it, and she wonders what he’d say if she knew – if Arthur knew, if they all knew – how she’s been spending her nights.

“How do you build her?” she asks, looking back at Arthur leaning against the wall. “She’s not a part of the design. How do you bring her in?”

Arthur shrugs slightly. “You remember,” he says.

Ariadne looks back at Mal, with her head tipped back and laughing in the sunlight, and tells Arthur she’s ready to wake up.

* *

“I know you,” Mal says, “I know what you want,” and her hand is clenched tight in Ariadne’s hair, her nails sharp and unforgiving on the nape of Ariadne’s neck, her hips grinding so hard against Ariadne’s face that she can’t breathe.

She whimpers when Mal pulls her hair, when Mal’s fingernails break her skin, and licks deeper, faster, before finally she just holds still, aching and overwhelmed, and lets Mal ride her open, bruised mouth until she comes.

Ariadne is hot all over, aching, and her own fingernails are digging hard into her sides, arms wrapped around her waist, because she can’t touch herself here. Not in front of Mal. Mal watches her with eyes that flay Ariadne to the depths of her soul, and then she reaches down, and her fingertips lightly trace the taut line of Ariadne’s nipple through her shirt.

When Ariadne wakes up in the cold darkness of the warehouse, she can’t tell if it’s because she’s just died or she’s just come.

‘The little death,’ the French call it. She touches herself between her legs, hot and too sensitive, and makes herself come again, even though she’s so raw it hurts, before she leaves on shaky legs to catch the bus home.

* *

“Do you know what it is to be a lover?” Mal asks, almost teasing, and Ariadne kneels on the broken glass in front of her, worshiping, her face upturned. Mal touches her face, long fingernails skimming past her open, vulnerable eyes, and bends down to kiss her.

She parts Ariadne’s lips with her tongue, tracing them lightly, and Ariadne squeezes her eyes closed because she can’t look and feel at the same time. It’s too much.

Mal kisses her like a lover, like half of a whole, and Ariadne doesn’t care that this must be Dom’s memory because now it’s hers, too, and this moment is hers alone. She whimpers when Mal’s tongue strokes hers, dirty and clever, and again when Mal’s fingers settle lightly around her throat.

She doesn’t know which is more thrilling; Mal’s touch, or the moment she knows she’s going to die.

* *

Mal sits like a queen on her throne, surrounded by spilled wine and broken glass. Ariadne walks toward her slowly, unable to look away. Her entire body is shaking, but it’s with anticipation, not fear.

“Where is Dom?” Mal asks.

Ariadne doesn’t answer. She stands still, waiting.

“I know you,” Mal says.

“Yes,” Ariadne whispers.

Mal stands, crushing wine beneath her feet, Bacchus in female form. She comes forward, circles. She’s so close Ariadne can smell her, can feel her breath warm on the back of her neck.

“Do you know what it is to be a lover?” she asks.

Ariadne takes a breath, thrilled and helpless, the prey frozen to the ground in the hopes the predator won’t pounce. Her heart pounds rabbit-fast in her chest.

“Ask me again,” she says.

Mal stands in front of her, with the lush curves of a goddess and knowing eyes. Ariadne no longer feels like a girl, like a child.

“Why are you here?” Mal asks her, and Ariadne closes her eyes.

“Because this is my dream.”

* *

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Avec mes souvenirs](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9235760) by [sophinisba](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sophinisba/pseuds/sophinisba)




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